


Bleed On: The A to Z Of Falling In Love Disgracefully

by applegnat



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applegnat/pseuds/applegnat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zlatan and Sandro: the romantic comedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bleed On: The A to Z Of Falling In Love Disgracefully

**Author's Note:**

> calikali's [december 2007 frankenstein mix](http://calikali.livejournal.com/54703.html) posed the idea of a 'concept album', wot she called the 'ideal romantic comedy' soundtrack. i can't do either 'ideal' or 'romantic,' but I chose to interpret 'comedy' as 'utter crack' and went way over the top and wrote a long story to go with it.

**i. opening credits**

_You're built like a car,   
you've got a hubcap diamond-starred halo  
You're built like a car, oh yeah  
You're an untamed youth, that's the truth,   
with your cloak full of eagles _   
[t. rex - get it on (bang a gong)](http://www.sendspace.com/file/kinjge)

The adorable, amiable, scatty Max, Tolkien fanatic and blacksmith's apprentice, is in love with the talented, beautiful and brilliant Sofia, amateur painter and rocket scientist in training. We meet them at the age of twenty-one, tumbling around in bed like the cute puppies they are, when one thing leads to another and they realise it would be the best idea in the world to be married. Cue more jumping around as they engage in an orgy of self-congratulatory celebration, Max impulsively and cunningly fashioning rings for both of them from strips of the potted grass in Sofia's balcony, Sofia calling their mothers to tell them the happy news. The credits end as the newly-engaged, exhausted from all the excitement, realise that there are two other people who need to be informed.

**ii. the kickass, yet lonely hero**

_Theres a brand new dance but I dont know its name  
That people from bad homes do again and again_   
** [david bowie - fashion](http://www.sendspace.com/file/k5mkn2) **

With no explanation, the camera hovers, satellite-like, over the city of Milan. We are treated to the familiar, gorgeous aerial views of the sights: swooping in past Lake Como, via the Duomo, La Scala - and then, we zoom, roller-coasterishly, down to a sharp rectangle of green, sucked vertiginally into the story's core by gravity, ready to hit the ground with a thud before we swerve to the right and are confronted by a solid wall of humanity, a dichromatic, nightmarish mass of blue and black. We're in the Curva Nord of the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, also known as the San Siro, and the Inter Milan fans, in their traditionally demarcated domain, are singing the name of one man tonight. Montage: cut to the boy playing football in his Bosnian immigrant neighbourhood. Cut to the team at Malmö. Cut: Ajax, Amsterdam, humiliating the press with calm arrogance, even as he graciously consents to an interview for a kid's show, drinking OJ and cracking jokes as he sprawls in the grass. Cut: dribbling chewed gum off his knees at Juventus. Cut: the present.

No one in the world actually stops to consider the loneliness of the ~~long-distance runner~~ hero, a gifted, badly-behaved young man playing football in one of Italy's biggest clubs - not even the hero himself. Zlatan, worn by constant travel, innocent of humility, inspires extreme reactions of envy and annoyance in those around him. He's been called 'half-gangster, half-ballerina' by critics who are, perversely enough, also his admirers. He's gorgeously talented, extremely successful, and great at getting people's backs up. It'd be difficult to find someone more annoying, more charming, or less likely to wait for the others in the race to pick themselves up.

**iii. the sensitive, yet manly hero**

** _I move like a cat  
Charge like a ram  
Sting like a bee  
Babe I want to be your man_   
[t. rex - 20th century boy]() **

The camera swoops across the San Siro to the Curva Sud: a different set of stripes, a different name on the lips of the screaming _tifosi_. We hover over the heads of the fangirls and -boys, a teeming wave of AC Milan devotees who can't remember a time when Alessandro wasn't the indispensable part of their team he is today. Yet, this is something Alessandro doesn't forget himself. Let's look at the newspaper archives: we first see him as a self-conscious youngster, pushed into football to cure himself of an ailment of the bones. He goes from striker to midfielder to, finally, defender, all at his home club Lazio. The boy grows, swannishly, into an elegant young man. There is, however, gawking and squawking involved. Alessandro is seen, here, for example, urging the fans of his club on in their litany of insults flung at a visiting team. Yet there are people gawking and squawking at him, too. Alessandro makes the national team. He assumes the captaincy of his club at an age many footballers are still struggling to make their clubs' first teams. And everywhere, people are astonished by his skill. When his home club needs money, it is Alessandro who has to go - Alessandro who will rescue them as a parting gift, because everyone wants him on their team. He grows into his good looks. Pelé himself announces that for his national team, Brazil, to be perfect, they need only one addition to their squad, Alessandro Nesta. If Zlatan inspires contradictory feelings in other people, Alessandro is himself that much-discussed, badly-researched literary trope: a bundle of contradictions. Handsome and talented, but notoriously brittle, as disdainful of attention as he is fearful, a sage when he's quiet, and a fretful, gnomish, shy man when he opens his mouth - which is not often. He's smart, gifted, and possesses a talent for petulance virtually unmatched.

_Cut to action._

Except, of course, by the man he's currently marking in a set-piece that may just decide the match one way or another.

It's a corner-kick at the Milan goal: the stadium is roiling with expectation, the noise from the stands almost muted to a hum in the ears of the teams as the neon of the overhead lights seem solid and sharp enough to reflect off the grass, straight into their eyes. Not a muscle on the field is anything but alert, sprung to attention, waiting, counting heartbeats by the microsecond as Crespo arrows the ball into the heart of the penalty area, where A and Z are caught in a deadlock impermeable by so much as a sigh. The ball curves upwards, glints fluorescent before it comes crashing down, and A and Z shoot into the air to meet it, both at the same time. The shot almost doesn't need the slow-motion. There's grace and power there, something pure and beautiful in the motion of glinting bodies, arcing upwards, defying gravity.

Then, their skulls crack into each others'.

The fall happens in regular frames/second, but it looks faster, so quickly do they both crash to the ground and start up again, A beginning to bleed, and get into each other's faces. They stand, nose-to-nose, A's lips curled down even as Z's quirk up in a smirk.

The shot almost doesn't need a freeze and fade to monochrome. They've been doing it for years now.

**iv. our heroes meet. **

** _He says, its three a.m., theres too much noise  
Dont you people ever wanna go to bed?  
Just cause you feel so good, do you have  
To drive me out of my head? _   
[rolling stones - get off my cloud](http://www.sendspace.com/file/cp0a15) **

Everyone wishes they hadn't.

There are dates, places, names: They cross each other, like love-letters in the mail, both on the field and off. A tournament in which they missed drawing each other's teams, here. A holiday in Rome, perhaps, and a revolving door that disgorges them in opposite directions, there (A is trying to find network for his cell phone; Z realises he's left his cards back in the store). What is important in this.

(Two years earlier)

There is a match: Milan versus Ajax. Colour and motion bleeds into our last freeze. Our heroes are in exactly the same position as we saw them in the Milan derby, but the stadium has changed, the time is different. They look a little younger, a little less careworn – but just as annoyed. The camera draws our attention to the spot as Alessandro's nose begins to bleed profusely. Players mill around them, trying to separate them, but there has to be time, of course, for some flirtatious dialogue. Nose to nose, Zlatan will ask, _what are you, blind?_ and Alessandro will iron out his frown, re-arrange his features to denote sarcasm, and retort, _oh, apology accepted_. And Zlatan will say, as he is wont to do, _Zlatan never apologises_ and Alessandro will look incredulous at the wanton use of third-person, before snarling, _Well, he will now_. Zlatan's lip curls. _Well, try him._ _Well, I will,_ says Alessandro, abandoning all pretence at cool.

Other voices come to our ears now: Paolo Maldini drags Alessandro away firmly, all imperious inattention to Zlatan. The referee puts himself in front of the young striker, about to read him the riot act. A quick cut back-and-forth between a close-up of Alessandro's bloody face and a pan to include the referee and Zlatan at the other end of the frame. Alessandro is about to limp out of sight, when we hear Zlatan say _you should really start giving out cards for stupidity, ref_, eyeing Alessandro's back.

There's no separating the two after that.

 

**v. our heroes go on a wacky first date. **

** _Yes I'm running down the railway track  
Could you help me? Police on my back  
They will catch me if I dare drop back  
Wont you give me all the speed I lack?_   
[the clash - police on my back](http://www.sendspace.com/file/rp01ef) **

It doesn't get wackier than a disciplinary hearing, does it? Our heroes are sent up to be advised by a serious, earnestly correct ex-footballer-turned-UEFA-official who gives them the _you have made headlines for all the wrong reasons_ lecture spiked with a heavy dose of _unbecoming of two such talented young professionals_, ending with a portion of _you have made football the loser today_. It's not as bad as it sounds, since neither of them pay much attention. They're too busy glaring at each other. A can't seem to take the frown off his face. Z can't seem to wipe the smirk off his.

Thank you, Z says politely after the official pauses for breath. This was a good conversation. It'll help the gin slip down faster.

Gin! exclaims the official. In my day gin was a woman's drink. Anyway, you can have one later, my boy. Much later. After you've both had time to think about what you've done.

I had time to think about everything I've done, says Alessandro, waspishly. Your life kind of flashes before your eyes when you're about to bleed to death.

No one bleeds to death through their _nose_, Zlatan wasps back. Unless it's a particularly big one. Oh, excuse me, I see why you were understandably concerned for your life.

The official clicks his tongue. Such animosity. You boys should really try yoga. It's just as well you're going to talk each other through this negativity – for the sake of football.

No, says Alessandro. I don't think we are, says Zlatan. But the door clicks shut on their choric disavowal of conflict management, eliciting a simultaneous switch into now-look-what-you've-done mode from both. Daggers in an iron maiden could not feel sharper.

The shadows lengthen as we dissolve to some time later, our heroes slumped in defeated poses in the same room, as far from each other as possible, their mutual glares undiminished in concentration, although the frown and the smirk are now distinctly beginning to take on the appearance of a mask of the fact that Zlatan's cheekbones are high and delicate, almost too beautiful to belong in his face, and that Alessandro's hair looks as what a cool, cool drink of raincloud might feel to a parched man. The deadlock is broken when Alessandro sneezes, and winces immediately – the forgotten bandage on his nose chafes most abominably. Zlatan laughs at that, and, in that way he has, Alessandro smiles too, almost ruefully. Almost to himself.

Alright, Z says, I broke your nose. I owe you a drink.

I don't see any gin around, says A. Not that I'd drink gin, anyway. It _is_ for girls.

Zlatan refrains from saying _well then it should suit you just fine_, perhaps because it's late and he really, really could do with some alcohol and sleep, or perhaps because the smile is kind of distracting, and says instead, no, no gin, but there is a window.

So there is, A turns and looks at it.

No one'd see.

So they wouldn't.

They shin down the pipe outside the window of Penitence Inc., Alessandro's head sinking out of sight just as the nice official unlocks the door and is greeted with the sight of an empty room. Our heroes run down a quaint cobbled slope, liberation giving them wings, all the way down to a bar to which no decent club would ever take its players to celebrate.

Rum, says A. Just one drink, mind.

As if I'd buy you more, says Z.

 

**vi. our heroes deconstruct each other with their respective best friends **

** _Sometimes I wonder  
What I'm gonnna do  
There ain't no cure  
For the summertime blues_   
[t. rex - summertime blues](http://www.sendspace.com/file/cpme5) **

This is where we take recourse to a montage because there is nothing quite so valid, endlessly entertaining and fruitful for Z and A, at this point, than deconstructing each other with their teammates. They're expected to do it for a living, after all. Cut to montages of training rooms, watching each other on video. Cut to A drawing a field diagram on the lunch table paper napkins at Milanello, tracing Z's possible trail of destruction on it in tomato sauce. Cut to Z poring over a newspaper with an editorial dissection of Milan's defensive indestructibility, lingering over commentary on phenomena we've already seen him witness with interest and relish the night before. Late summer gives way to autumn, and autumn to winter, as our heroes blaze a trail across the football field, each a sun in his own sphere, destined to collide as the league table moves them closer and closer to each other.

He's good, says Andrea Pirlo to Alessandro one night, watching Zlatan demolish some less fortunate defence.

Well, fuck, says Jankulovski, as Z scores.

Maybe we should start drinking gin, Andrea says mildly.

He _is_ good, Jankulovski says in a pained voice.

Alessandro shrugs, eats a chip. He's not unbeatable, he says, and smiles a little smile.

Some sunny morning, a newspaper stops Z and asks him which defenders have given him the most trouble, still a little disbelieving that he will say what he does say to them: that there isn't really anyone he has trouble getting past.

Well alright, the journalists say, thrown a little off-track, as unprepared for the starkness of the arrogance as you are for the sound of nails on a blackboard, no matter how often you've heard it. Z nods, grins, begins to walk away. His tie flaps in the wind; the journalists are almost recovered when he turns, walks back, and opens his mouth.

Yes? The journalists say a little breathlessly.

There is this one guy, Z says. Alessandro Nesta. He's more trouble than the others.

Oh, you think he's good, the journalists beam.

He's great, says Z, smiling a little smile. But he's not _unbeatable_.

They face each other on field, lined-up one opposite the other before kick-off. It's a big match. It always is.

We have got to stop meeting like this, Zlatan says as they shake hands.

You have a point, says Alessandro. So if I break your nose this time, will you let me buy you some gin?

A gentleman expects no less, Zlatan grins.

Alessandro refrains from saying _yes, but what about you?_ mostly because he has to get into position, but also because he's kind of distracted by the grin. Later, he says, and strides off.

The match begins, and they're going at each other, almost as if the football in between is an excuse of some sort.

 

**vii. our heroes have a significantly better second date**

** [david bowie - speed of life](http://www.sendspace.com/file/br8svg) **

And so we see the match progress; the flow of play is dictated by one side, broken, dictated by the other, reversed; the pace is varied, the players moving fluidly with the current. The night wears on; the lights brighten, then dim. The field empties of teams and referees, just as the stands empty of people, around Z and A. They circle each other, the pace of the game now mazy and languid, a kickaround that befits boys playing in the drowsy afternoon heat while the rest of the world turns indoors. The moon climbs high into the night as they flop down on the grass, beneath the lights of the stadium winking out, breathless and very happy. Zlatan turns, about to say something cheeky, but finds Alessandro in a world of his own, face turned up to the descending indigo dark, fingers combing through the grass as the wind ruffles his hair. It seems almost a shame to disturb the picture, but Zlatan pretty much has the whole shameless thing down pat, so he applies his cleats gently to Alessandro's ankle, says, you were supposed to buy me a drink.

Alessandro smiles with rather too much equanimity for someone who's been playing football for half the day and says, I was also supposed to break your nose for you.

Ah, Z says. You have a very unhealthy interest in gore. A's eyes fly open.

_I_ have a – I suppose you're a veritable man of peace, aren't you?

Oh yeah, Z nods. Yoga, meditation, kittens, puppies, giant shipwreck romances. I'm the whole deal.

Hey, I _liked_ Titanic, A says. Z stares at him in horror before the stadium virtually rings with his laughter. He croaks _Jack, Jaaa-aa-ck!_ all the way out into the parking lot, and is unable to find his car keys.

I suppose you'll ask me to drive you now, A says.

Well, Z says, looking sweet and tractable. I'm sure as hell not planning to get a cab out of here.

Indeed, says A. I don't think Milan has cabs big enough to carry your ego.

Besides which, I might find some rabid Milanista cabbie, and then where would I be? You're all horrible drivers to start with. Such beautiful cars. It makes me want to throw up all over them when an Italian is driving. I'd just be one for the headcount at this time of night for –

Z keeps up the talk. We fadeout on our heroes' backs to the camera, getting into the car, the gleam of an alien set of keys in A's crossed fingers behind his back.

 

**viii. the significant moment in which our heroes fall in love **

** _Yeah, we all need someone we can dream on  
And if you want it, baby, well you can dream on me  
Yeah, we all need someone we can cream on  
And if you want to, well you can cream on me_   
[ the rolling stones - let it bleed](http://www.sendspace.com/file/vo2i7y) **

The montage follows the progress of what began as an execrable tussle and continues, to all intents and purposes, along that route. Just because our heroes seem to enjoy each others company does not mean they temper their acquaintance with sweetness and light. They manage, somehow, to make the most harmless of pleasures fraught with impatience. They can't pick out clothes for each other without starting a fight that makes young, inexperienced shop assistants cry. They can't watch a film together without one of them making fun of the other for enjoying it. They can't seem to play football without making it a matter of personal affront, nor fall asleep, tired out, on the same couch, without digging elbows and drooling all over each other.

We've cut the action to the moment two years after their first meeting, when our heroes stand nose-to-nose in the Milan derby (remember?), an extreme close-up that forces us to see the shape of the glittering, sweaty evening formed in between the meeting of their noses. Z blinks as A pulls away with a murmured and hurried sorry, not a word he's used too often on Z although by all accounts it is a getaway word for him, the kind of thing he says even when he doesn't mean it as long as it destroys the possibility of further interpersonal exercise. They come away from each other rubbing their heads, sweat and blood and an advanced heart rate that has nothing to do with competing in the very top flight of football threatening to shift their focus away from the game. Not that it makes much of a difference, and it doesn't occur to either of them to be grateful to a fate that requires them to be paid handsomely for doing what they most want in the world, which is too keep their eyes on each other. Even if Ancelotti does not believe in man-marking.

**ix. our heroes make love for the first time**

** _You got to mix it child  
You got to fix it but love  
Its a bitch, alright_   
[ the rolling stones - bitch](http://www.sendspace.com/file/cnm0ju) **

Make love. The very idea. Of course they don't. They have ridiculous, awkward, potentially life-threatening, brilliantly fun sex, of the kind that could never be rendered explicitly on camera for what started out as and remains a PG-13 rom-com. Cue a lavatory door crashing shut and the surreptitious appearance of the gleam of discarded trousers too shiny to be worn by anyone with taste (NB: Alessandro has taste). Cue a seemingly endless number of doors crashing shut: locker-rooms, bedrooms, boardrooms, studios. There's a lovely inevitability to the rhythm of our heroes backing each other into rooms and slamming each other into vertical surfaces, mouths too busy to do anything so prosaic as talk, of course.

**x. the tragic misunderstanding and breakup**

** _Did you stand by me  
No, not at all  
Did you stand by me  
No way_   
[ the clash - train in vain](http://www.sendspace.com/file/s3feid) **

What is the difference between a tragedy and a comedy in matters of love? Why, the fact that a tragic romance is destroyed by external factors that make a pawn of our heroes, of course, while the trouble that puts a romantic comedy in jeopardy is entirely the fault of the couple at hand. Put in that perspective, could a tragic misunderstanding and break-up be anything but inevitable in such a romance as this, where the deliberate chain of misunderstanding and miscommunication is only waiting for a trip across the stringy line that indicates the point beyond which a joke is carried too far?

Naturally, both of them are at fault. Like every other significant thing in the relationship (such as it is) their tragedy (such as _it_ is) occurs in the course of their being gits on the football field. Don't believe it could happen? Look at Rooney and Ronaldo. Not that our heroes would be quite such chavs about it, though. Their romance may or may not be the stuff of epics, but their blow-ups do take on a rather Miltonian colour in their buildup and scope and – dare we say it? – beauty. Imagine Z in a precarious disciplinary position before one of the Milan derbies. Imagine the situation being compounded by the smash of an elbow on him by a none-too-precise A, groggy from the pain meds that yet another minor but frustrating injury has put him through (oh, pain meds. Have they any true place of respect in the rom-coms of this day and age?), and the situation, an aerial challenge just inside the penalty area, that might a microsecond earlier been a miracle of defensive play that made A famous in the first place, so grave as to warrant a card and a suspension of an inconvenient length for A, and something to staunch the blood running into Z's shirt. This is clearly unacceptable for what was a move a) far from deliberate on A's part on b) a man who has a history of provoking, compounding and disowning mischief on a number of occasions. As A turns to throw a look at Z, he meets nothing in those eyes of cloudless night but a blank lack of acknowledgement. We have on our hands a quandary. Should A be forgiving of Z? Should Z climb down, swallow his pride, and justify himself for A's sake? Should they be ~~lovers~~ ~~friends~~ human beings before they are footballers?

They will be nothing of the sort, since common sense and communication skills do not make for good romantic comedy. Our heroes, bereft of the sense of humour that enabled them to make a break for freedom on that first whacky occasion of spilt blood and referee intervention, refuse to talk to each other. Z feels A should have understood his position – another card might have put his position on the first team of a squad bursting with over-competitive strikers in jeopardy, after all – and A believes now that all the sensitivity that he has lately interpreted in the character of Z is merely a passing dream in the night (in this case it may not just be the pain meds clouding our hero's judgment, we should stop to consider). Cruel and misspelt emails are written, and regrettably short conversations end in the mutual repetition of the word so dreaded by lovers of banter and mature, reasoned dialogue everywhere: _Fine_, they say. _Fine._

Fine.

**xi. the montage of attempting to move on and failing horribly**

** _O this time of love moves me._   
[ t. rex - lofty skies](http://www.sendspace.com/file/wsy4fr) **

Rocks fall and everyone dies.

Certainly this would be a better alternative to having to see Z and A attempt to move on and fail horribly. Mostly because they _don't_. There is a frustrating, magical amalgam of self-deception and honesty that prevents either of them from a) acknowledging that they must perforce attempt to move on and b) ever actually examine the possibility of getting over it and getting on with life. Surprisingly, it is Z who utters the film's only overtly sentimental dialogue, in the throes of drunkenness, setting fire to a football cheekily autographed _Wishing you the very best in your attempts to become a footballer, A_ and kicking it into the icy pool in his garden. After all, he says, people can go on living after they lose their eyes or arms or legs. A heart is considerably less important to a football player.

A, always the more apparently gracious of the two, contents himself with taking down the game plan diagrams he'd saved from the last Milan derby, bundling them up with an Inter shirt he'd exchanged on field with Z, and stuffing them under Milanello's plush carpeting, knowing that the cleaning ladies never bother vacuuming under it.

**xii. the montage of missing each other**

** _I don't sit around and wait  
I don't give a damn  
I don't see the point at all  
No footprints in the sand_   
[david bowie - i would be your slave](http://www.sendspace.com/file/cx5ko1) **

 

It's a cold winter, full of snow, bunched-up clothing, and last-minute Christmas stress. One shudders to think of what our heroes would do if they played for the same club. It'd be sticky shoes and upset ketchup bottles everywhere. Neither of them takes kindly - or maturely – to a betrayed heart. The distance between two rival teams, however, is hardly measured by two points. The montage mirrors exactly the montage where our heroes, once in the first flush of love, deconstructed each other with their friends. No longer is it pleasant or painless to have to listen to endless game plans and tactical approaches to a) bottling Z and b) getting past A. Why does the sun go on shining, why does the sea rush to shore, don't they know it's the end of the world, 'cause you don't love me anymore: yes/no?

Well, our heroes aren't really the sort to mooch around, let alone stop to consider the end of the world. We go back to seeing images of Z slumping moodily in his cups amidst a horde of sympathetic ~~friends~~ colleagues, or A in a sulk that would be comparable to an Achillean attack of the blues were it not so _dreary_ \- nothing in the life of a modern footballer allows time to get over a bruised and broken heart, alas, alack and more. No longer can A sit around and admire the gin-drinking goodness of a sneaky, brilliant cross struck from Z's right foot with his friends. He must perforce get up and leave. No longer can reporters be treated to anything more than an ominous silence and a tie flapping in the wind when Z is asked about how difficult he expects A to make forthcoming matches for him.

For the sake of sanity, their coaches react by dropping them both from the next Milan derby.

 

**xiii. the chance meeting**

** _Should I stay or should I go now?  
If I go there will be trouble  
And if I stay it will be double_   
[the clash - should i stay or should i go](http://www.sendspace.com/file/xr8794) **

Even Shakespeare, it's evident, used co-incidence with some distaste as a plot to unite (or, you know, kill) his lovers in his drama. There must always be angels to pull strings and draw maps to help lost lovers find their way across to each other. Let us return to the present, over two decades (give or take a couple years) after we faced a field bereft of two great rivals. Scene 1: Sofia announces to her father, who has grown old so gracefully as to refute some of the Bard's greatest utterances on the sad passing of youth, that she is to be married. He raises his eyebrows in shock and forbids it outright. This makes Sofia laugh. She pours her father more coffee and insists that he will like Max.

Really, her father asks with some scepticism.

No, probably not, she concedes. But _I_ like him. He shakes his head and frowns. _Does he play football?_ he asks her. Answered in the negative, he curls his lovely mouth and says, _well, at least there's something to be said for that._

Geometric dissolve! (A must for every film worth its salt – I cannot believe this isn't more popular). We see Max pruning flowers, while his father, a chiselled figure of a man who has stayed young (somewhat disgracefully) over the last two decades, pees on the herb patch.

Marry, his father says. Why do you want to get married? Marriage is an outdated institution. Your mother and I were never married. Max is judiciously silent. Birds twitter, the sun shines.

Is she a nice girl? His father asks Max.

She's a very nice girl, says Max.

I never thought my son would marry a nice girl, says his father.

We thought we could all meet up this weekend, Max, a master of casual conversation. Her father lives in Milan.

Tell me he's not an Interista, says Z, kicking over an unnoticed rake that would have tripped up a lesser man. The last thing I need is an Interista for an in-law. All we'll be talking about is how great I am for as long as your marriage lasts.

I'm pretty sure he's not an Interista, says Max, and smiles a beguiling, innocently sunny smile.

The occasion is a Milan derby, and the television cameras, poised to focus on the game, happen, in those occasional habitual sweeps across the expensive seats to catch a glimpse of the great and good who come to support their clubs for this game of all games, do a double-take and rather shaky zoom in to a particular section of the stands concentrated on preventing two handsome, well-dressed legends of the past from killing each other with their bare hands. What the – what on earth? asks a commentator, a man who came of age in the time that Zlatan and Alessandro set the San Siro alight with their football (and allied activities). Do my eyes see what I think they do? Can it be – yes – no – it's Alessandro Nesta, whom we haven't seen out in public in years! Ladies and gentlemen, we're seeing the Greta Garbo of football set foot in the San Siro decades after he played his last match here. And what is he doing? Oh my goodness, he's engaged in a fist fight with Zlatan Ibrahimović, striker extraordinaire and his bête noire of old, who vowed he would never return to Italy after his sensational retirement from football at the height of his powers! Are they – is that? Oh, that is not going to look pleasant tomorrow! Ouch! And I wouldn't be surprised if the sound system picked up a sickening little crunch on _that_ one!

Commentator #2, a gifted young woman with no emotional investment in either of the Milan clubs, dryly remarks that the past has returned to good effect in the stadium tonight, since events off pitch are certainly more entertaining than anything she expects to see on the field tonight. Commentator #1, too absorbed in the fight, seems thoroughly disappointed to have to return to observing play when footage is abruptly cut short and returned to focus on what the paying public has come to watch, even if all the ones over 30 have received far more than their money's worth tonight.

Eventually, we hear, the two legends are torn apart from each other by the offices of two young people later identified as their son and daughter. Oh, Italy. How she laughs when the engagement is announced the next day.

**xiv. the reconciliation**

** _Mighty eagles pair, on the peace of your hair  
Light all the fires,  
It's the king of the rumbling spires  
Light all the fires,  
It's the king and he's coming home._   
[t. rex - king of the rumbling spires](http://www.sendspace.com/file/d332wc) **

Preparations for the wedding (all romantic comedies must have one), which no force of will or tantrum can call off (perhaps the children have inherited the stubbornness of their sperm donors, after all) are well underway, difficult though it is for A to believe that, in a most Lord Emsworthian fashion, his garden will be trampled all over by the kind of people he most dislikes – strangers – on the thoroughly distasteful occasion of his daughter's entering a social contract with a charming young hippie almost insultingly unlike his father. He squints up into the balmy autumn sky, misanthropically hoping for rain as trellises and canopies and marquees of all kinds are erected about him. He casts about for somewhere on the disconcertingly embellished landscape for a patch free of humanity to rest his eyes on. He looks longingly down his driveway, wishing for an escape route, when a purring, dazzlingly sleek little engine makes it's presence felt, obligingly scarlet and jarringly out of sync with the soothing green and white of the landscape, and its pleasing faux-bucolic activities of the wedding planners with bundles of pastel-coloured flower arrangements in their hands, scurrying about like elves. A narrows his eyes as Z steps out of the car, flashy in the way only a foreigner attempting to embody southern European style can be. Nonchalant and becomingly shaded and scarved, Z walks up the path towards him, stopping to smile and admire the wedding arrangements and absently rip a lily to pieces in his long, clever fingers on the way.

How's your cheek? he nods and mumbles, not meeting A's eyes as he draws near.

It's been worse, A says dryly. I take it your shiner hasn't disappeared.

I bruise easily, Z says delicately. A snorts.

So what have you been doing? They ask each other at the same time. Oh, just this and that – nothing, really, they respond in tandem.

People have been telling me I should start coaching, Z says, studying his nails. Pass along my wisdom, stuff like that.

What wisdom? A asks politely. Z shrugs. I tell them that you have to be born with these things, but they won't listen.

I can't believe our children would do this to us, A says, à propos of the festive air about them.

Oh, I know, Z says, hurriedly. In fact, that's what I came here to talk to you about.

Oh, I thought you came to apologize, A says.

Zlatan never apologises, Z says. But listen, my son and your daughter.

I know, says A. I know.

It's a shock. I had no idea.

Me neither.

They should call it off.

They absolutely should. It's embarrassing.

They're so young. They don't know what they're doing.

At least, A complains, they should have had the good sense to elope.

Z laughs. A doesn't smile.

Elope, Z says dreamily. That's a good thought.

Yes, well, you always did enjoy a good run, A says, and smiles weakly. Z looks at him, uncomprehending.

Joke, says the rather lame A. Run. Football. Goal.

Ah, says Z. Yes. Even with you around.

Only very rarely, A says.

Z kicks at something invisible, scuffing his feet in the grass. So I realise this is bound to end in disaster, he says. But do you have time for a kickaround?

A ignores the question for a moment, as the frame fills with the buzzing of gambolling bees and the nodding of flowers gathering light in the golden hour before dusk.

Only if there's no gin afterwards, A says.

No gin, Z concedes. But no apologies, either.

And no marriage, hopefully, A says.

We should talk more about this eloping thing, Z smiles, and gestures graciously towards his car.

 

**xv. closing credits**

** _Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere, angel  
Come get up my baby  
Run for the shadows, run for the shadows  
Run for the shadows in these golden years_   
[david bowie - golden year](http://www.sendspace.com/file/hx3kym) **

There are photographs of children. Sulky, brawling, crying children. A team photograph of pouting infants, their beaming coach Z holding up horns behind the heads of the two on either side of them. One of A holding a boy by the seat of his pants, parallel to the ground, demonstrating the precise nature of such-and-such a defensive tactic. The two of them standing side by side, glaring at each other over the top of the board announcing the name of their football school. More and more kids, all of them distinguished by the gleam of trophies on their shelves, stars on their shirts and the brilliance of their haircuts, posing with one or both of their mentors.

One photo, yes, of them grinning foolishly as they hold a pair of tiny infants, both of whom will no doubt grow up thinking that the grandfathers of children everywhere are in love with other grandfathers.

**Author's Note:**

> I played around with a lot of ideas for a good soundtrack, including the bewitching idea of a post-bop jazz-and-blues playlist - Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, B.B. King, and Ray Charles. Mmmm. Maybe tomorrow. Finally I settled on classic british glam, punk and blues. Who, really, wouldn't want to fall in love to [this song](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rolling+stones/let+it+bleed_20117892.html)?


End file.
